Huawei GR5 2017 Review - 5.5" Full-HD Screen and Dual Cameras

While most of the attention will be on the release of Huawei's P10 and P10 Plus two weeks ago, Huawei has also silently released another budget phone, the GR5 2017. Promising a considerable upgrade over last years GR5, how does it fare in comparison to the rest? In this review, we'll have a first look at the Huawei GR5 2017.

Design

Build and Screen

Huawei has been known for its excellent build quality, and the latest GR5 2017 is no exception. A metal unibody gives the GR5 a premium look and feel, as well as excellent protection. Likewise to last years model, the Huawei GR5 2017 has a 5.5 inch screen with a Full-HD resolution, to allow for extremely bright and detailed viewing. The curved edges and '2.5D' design (where the glass is slightly raised) allows the GR5 2017 to still be comfortably and easily held despite its large screen size. The fingerprint scanner is rear-mounted below the camera, and is extremely fast as usual.

Camera

Budget phones usually come with 'decent' cameras, but Huawei in producing the GR5 2017 has made an effort to stand out from the rest, equipping it with dual cameras to allow for faster focusing and making the 'bokeh' feature possible. And it has impressed, with many reviewers nothing extremely fast and detailed shots. The 'bokeh' effect, which allows the foreground or background to be blurred similar to many professional photographs, was well implemented as it was also possible to adjust the image after the shoot. On the front, there is also a 8 megapixel selfie camera, also impressing many reviewers with the quality of selfies it is able to produce. Beauty mode is also included as usual, giving the selfies a younger and fresher look.

Performance

Processor and Memory

The GR5 2017 is powered by Huawei's own Kirin 655 Octa-core processor. This is an interesting move as Huawei's budget phones typically use Snapdragon chips. Since the Kirin 655 is a new chip released this year as well, the Huawei GR5 2017 should be quite fast for a budget phone, and be able to handle all the basic tasks without any noticeable lag. Benchmarks currently suggest that the GR5 2017 is faster than last years model, which is a good sign. The GR5 2017 comes with 32GB of on-board storage and 3GB of RAM, a noteworthy upgrade from the 16GB and 2GB in last years model.

Battery

The Huawei GR5 2017 has a large 3340mAh battery, up from 3000mAh in last years model. Huawei has claimed 1.5 days of battery, so even under heavy use it should be able to last a day. The usual battery saving modes are included if you want to stretch out the battery further, but that shouldn't be an issue if you are able to charge it every night.

Conclusion

The Huawei GR5 2017 is no Huawei P10 or Samsung S8, but the hardware that Huawei has managed to pack in it for the price range is very impressive. It has proved to be a strong upgrade to last years already-impressive model, and as a result there are many reasons going for it. It has a premium design, both cameras are excellent, the processor is fast and well backed up by ample amounts of memory, battery life is long, and of course the price will not hurt your wallet.

Want it? Mobileciti has the lowest price anywhere in Australia for local stock and warranty, and delivers anywhere in Australia for free. So check the Huawei GR5 2017 out and gets yours now! The 2016 version of the Huawei GR5 is also on sale now, so make sure to also check it out.